Federalism , NCERT Class 11 of Political Science for UPSC , SSC ,RRB ,NTPC, RAILWAY,NDA , CDS

Federalism — NCERT Class 11 Federalism is a system of government in which powers and responsibilities are divided between two or more levels of government, usually a central government and state or provincial governments. The main purpose of federalism is to combine national unity with regional diversity. In a federal system, each level of government has constitutionally guaranteed powers, and neither level is completely subordinate to the other. The Constitution clearly defines the distribution of powers and provides an independent judiciary to resolve disputes between different levels of government. India follows a federal system with a strong Centre. The Constitution divides legislative subjects between the Union and States through the Union List, State List and Concurrent List. The Union Government deals mainly with matters of national importance such as defence, foreign affairs and currency, while States have powers over areas such as police and public order. The Concurrent List contains subjects on which both Union and State governments can make laws. India’s federalism is not based only on constitutional division; it also depends on cooperation and political practice. The rise of regional parties and coalition governments has strengthened the importance of cooperative federalism. At the same time, India has several features that give greater strength to the Centre, including a strong Union government, emergency provisions, and certain circumstances in which Parliament can legislate on State subjects. Therefore, Indian federalism is often described as “federal in structure but with a strong unitary bias.” Federalism helps India manage its enormous linguistic, cultural, geographical and regional diversity while maintaining the unity and integrity of the country.